


Extraordinary Circumstances

by potentiality_26



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, Not Trailer Compliant, Post-Canon, Secret Identity Revealed, Third Party POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-18 08:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11870973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: Jamal had known since they were kids that Eggsy was the type to get a little manic- evenhappy- during a crisis.  But ever since the marines fell through Jamal had been pretty confident that Eggsy wouldn't be able to make a career out of it.Apparently he'd been wrong.Jamal learns the truth about Eggsy's job.





	Extraordinary Circumstances

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure this is truly gen since Hartwin is at least semi-implied- but I expect you can read them as friends if you prefer. 
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

"You know," Eggsy was saying.  "This ain't how I pictured telling you that I'm not actually a tailor."

"No shit," Jamal replied.  He felt like he had been... duplicated somehow, like there were two of him.  There was the Jamal hiding behind a desk in a tailor's shop, shoulder fitted to his oldest friend's, while mannequins and bolts of fabric got shot to pieces all around them.  That Jamal was cool enough to joke with Eggsy even though he wasn't too happy about being lied to for over a year.  And then there was the other Jamal.  That one was also hiding behind a desk, also pressed up against Eggsy's side, and also watching a tailor's shop get fucking demolished- and he was terrified.

Since that Jamal was absolutely frozen with fear, it must have been the former who had spoken.  Eggsy grinned at him. 

Jamal had known since they were kids that Eggsy was the type to get a little manic- even _happy_ \- during a crisis.  But ever since the marines fell through Jamal had been pretty confident that Eggsy wouldn't be able to make a career out of it.

Apparently he'd been wrong. 

"What are you, then?" he asked.

Eggsy said, "I'm a spy."  And- okay.  That was unexpected.  And cool, the part of Jamal that was thinking calmly despite the gunfire offered.  It was pretty fucking cool.  That didn't keep it from also being terrifying, though.  A bullet had whizzed by Jamal's head when the shooting first started.  Being almost dead was definitely not cool.  "I do work out of this shop, though."

"Well, yeah," Jamal said.  "Otherwise there wouldn't be people here trying to kill us.  Or- you know- you."

Eggsy looked properly apologetic for the first time, and Jamal was almost sorry for it.  Only almost, because he hardly had time to be much of anything- sorry or otherwise- before the nice white-haired guy who normally manned the front desk- and who had spent most of the altercation thus far hiding behind said desk- popped up and tossed Eggsy a pistol.  Right before opening up on the intruders with a machine gun.

"I take it he ain't a tailor either," Jamal said- or rather shouted to be heard over the racket.

"Actually he is," Eggsy replied.

Jamal blinked as he watched the man disappear behind the desk again, casual as anything despite the chaos around him. 

"Ex-military," Eggsy explained.  "And he knows- you know- what's up.  But he really is just a tailor."

Jamal had no chance to tell Eggsy what he thought about that- that it was mental- before Eggsy cocked his head to one side and went abnormally still.  For a moment, Jamal was scared- or, well, scared _er_ \- that he was missing something.  That Eggsy could hear something he couldn't, something bad, or that the situation was about to get worse in some way he simply couldn't yet fathom.

"Yeah," Eggsy said.  "I count nine."

The tailor whipped around the desk and fired his gun again.  "Eight now," Jamal said. 

Eggsy grinned again.  "Did you hear that?"  Before Jamal could ask just who the hell Eggsy was talking to, he continued, "Me and Dagonet have it covered."  He was silent for another moment, then, "Well if you want to."

It occurred to Jamal for the first time that Eggsy was talking to someone over an earpiece or other communication device, and that he had just tried to turn down backup.  

Luckily, whoever he was talking to didn't appear to be having it.  "Yeah," Eggsy said with a sigh.  "See you in thirty."

"Minutes?" Jamal yelped as someone fired on the desk that they were using as cover again, positively shredding the back of it.

Eggsy looked amused.  "Seconds," he said. 

Jamal hardly had time to think about that in turn before someone blew out of one of the dressing rooms.  And 'blew' was definitely the word for it.  He had two guns in his hands and he sure as fuck knew how to use them.  He emptied them both- halving the number of attackers at the same time- and dropped into a crouch at Eggsy's other side. 

Before, all Jamal could see was a blur of suit and danger, but now that the newcomer was finally still- or still _ish_ \- Jamal realized he recognized him.  He had seen him a few times when visiting Eggsy here at his work, and a few more times at Eggsy's house.  He was always perfectly polite and put-together when Jamal saw him; the feral gleam in his eyes now rendered him almost unrecognizable.  Jamal had always figured he was a colleague of Eggsy's, but he hadn't yet thought to place him in the context of the tailor's shop not really being a tailor's shop.  Jamal knew he and Eggsy were close, though he hadn't currently come to a conclusion regarding how close, and... Well.  This display rather put paid to any intentions he might have had to give this guy the shovel talk just in case they were _close_.  Because, while he was old for Eggsy, stranger things had happened- and it had never been clear to Jamal- or to Eggsy's mum, for that matter- just how he had ended up with a job like this in the first place.     

Jamal swallowed when the guy- Hart, Jamal remembered his surname being- caught his eye.  He gave a nod of vague recognition that was totally in keeping with how well they knew each other- or it would have been if one of the things Jamal knew about him had been that he kicked arse for a living.  As it was, the nod seemed... way too casual.  Like they had run into each other in a shop. 

A shop not currently being shot to pieces, that was. 

Hart quickly turned his attention back to Eggsy.  He didn't smile, but there was a weird kind of joy in his eyes that was actually very unsettling to witness.  "Shall we finish this?" he asked Eggsy.  

"If you insist," Eggsy replied, and there was this answering glow on his face.  And whether they were colleagues or friends or something else altogether they were definitely two peas in fucking a pod, weren't they?  And whatever else might have drawn him into this new world, Eggsy had stayed there because he fit in it, hadn't he?

What happened next happened very quickly.  Eggsy and Hart both reloaded and jumped from behind the desk in perfect sync.  They settled back to back, shooting all the while.  Jamal was sure what they were doing was dangerous as hell, even if those posh suits were somehow magically bulletproof, but it was almost beautiful, like a dance.  With the tailor laying down cover fire, it was like the two of them were unstoppable. 

By the time they reached the displays that their enemies had been using as cover, there were hardly any of them left.  Two, by Jamal's count- and then Eggsy did this move where he rolled over Hart's back like he was some kind of climbing frame, and _then_ Hart whipped around like they had practiced that move a million times, and they both fired at the same time.  _Bang._

And then the shop was quiet. 

The tailor moved first, starting to take stock of the damage.  Then Eggsy straightened up, and Hart caught him by the arm.  He settled close, fixing the line of Eggsy's jacket and brushing a bit of fluff off his collar like that was vitally important, and said something in a voice too low for Jamal to make it out. 

Whatever it was made Eggsy's eyebrows lift in surprise.

Jamal didn't start to get worried about what Hart was saying until he stole a look Jamal's way as he said something else.

"Yeah," Eggsy clearly said.  He nodded jerkily. 

Hart smiled faintly and clapped him on the shoulder, adding something else that Jamal couldn't hear.  Then, at a normal volume, he said, "I'll go and tell Merlin we need a cleanup crew."

Eggsy snorted and glanced around.  "Looks like."

Jamal got the sense that Hart was leaving them alone on purpose, so when Hart moved off and Eggsy crossed back to him he asked, "What was that about?"

"You," Eggsy said, apparently seeing no reason to hide it.  "I'm not- you know- supposed to tell anyone what I really do.  But these are... extraordinary circumstances.  You kinda just... found out, right?"

"And what was he telling you to do?  Wipe my memory or something?"

"Well, uh.  Actually he said it was up to me whether I did not." 

Jamal had been joking, but after a moment he concluded that Eggsy was not.  "Seriously?  You can- uh- you can do that?"

"Yeah."  Eggsy was starting to look apologetic again.  "Not anything long term, but the last twenty minutes or so?  Yeah.  I could."

"And will you?"

Eggsy shrugged one shoulder.  "I guess that depends on you.  Harry says that if I vouch for you it's all good, but... This is a big secret.  And it could be dangerous."

"'Cos of guys like these?" Jamal asked, glancing around at the fallen men with guns.

"We do pretty well hiding in plain sight most of the time," Eggsy said.  "But people do get onto us sometimes.  Bad people.  And you wouldn't be able to tell no one."

Jamal gave him a Look, because fucking _duh_ , right?  Not only wasn't he in the habit of telling people other people's secrets, anyone he did tell would think he was bonkers.  Spies based out of a tailor shop who can take your memories?  Oh yeah, he'd have them lining up to hear it. 

"I mean Ryan."

Jamal thought about arguing that Ryan hardly counted as just anyone- but he got Eggsy's point, and it did give him pause.  But he had kept things he knew from Ryan before because they were for Eggsy to tell- like the fact that Eggsy liked blokes as well as girls.  He asked Eggsy the same thing now that he had then, "You gonna work on telling him?"

Before, Eggsy had said _yes_ like there wasn't any doubt.  This time he shrugged again and said, "Dunno.  I will _try_ , though- since you know."

Whether 'trying' meant asking Hart or someone above him for permission, or engineering another accidental discovery like this one, that answer would have to be good enough for now.  But there were other things to think about.

Like he knew that, Eggsy added: "I've saved the world a lot, too.  Maybe you won't like knowing that's in my hands."  Eggsy was joking there- laughing at himself a little- but he also wasn't far off. 

Oh, if someone had to be out there making sure the world kept turning it might as well be Eggsy, since Jamal knew he would do everything he could.  But what if one day everything Eggsy could do was enough to save the world, but not enough to save him?  _That_ was what Jamal thought would probably keep him up nights.

Except that then he remembered how invincible Eggsy had seemed, back to back with Hart like that.  And he remembered how Hart had looked, when he knew he and Eggsy were going into battle side by side.  And he figured that while Eggsy was doing everything he could to save the world, Hart would probably be doing everything he could to save Eggsy, so...

So he thought Eggsy might actually be just fine.  "I think I can handle it," Jamal said finally. 

Eggsy slung an arm around Jamal's shoulders while a bunch of guys dressed like cleaners emerged from the same dressing room Hart had disappeared into.  "C'mon," he said, leading Jamal towards another of those rooms.  "I've got some stuff I wanna show you."  He was grinning, probably excited to finally talk to someone else about what he really did. 

His excitement was infectious, and Jamal grinned back.  He could worry about whether he had made a bad choice later.  Right now he just wanted to see whatever Eggsy wanted to show him.

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/).


End file.
